Unreasonable Things

Oh, reason not the need! ~King Lear

During the Fall season I become at once nostalgic and merciless. I remember the past and either want it back or wish that it had never happened, and I sort out and/or get rid of whatever I feel I no longer have a need for. Useless knicknacks and trinkets, clothes that no longer suit me, shoes that never were comfortable, books and magazines that only take up space and collect dust, beliefs that no longer hold water...away with them. Winter is a spare, lean season only weeks away now, and I want to meet it on its own terms.

But some things I keep in defiance of mutability or reason. I love paper with a scribe's reverence (I love pens too, but that's another fetish for another blog entry). Empty books I'll probably always leave blank, delicate handmade washi  I just like to look at, origami paper too lovely to wreck by folding...I keep them safe and dry and bring them out now and then to contemplate, imagining possibilities. Here are some I recently collected on my travels to Japan and Taiwan; click on the images to enlarge them.

 Very fine origami paper. The picture doesn't do justice to the splendor of the gold highlights.

 A Japanese gift topper. I just can't bear to give it away yet.

An empty book that says it all, in shiny white with black flocked velvet. 

Anything I wrote in it would seem futile.

I suppose I acquired this in the naive hope that the contents would magically open up into the swan pictured on the wrapper. Had I looked closer I'd have realized that I'm expected to construct the bird myself from the enclosed myriad of tiny pink and red squares of paper. Maybe in my next life...

A couple of extremely teensy models (only a couple of inches high) based on very large buildings. I can't bring myself to pop them out of the cardboard and construct them.

A perfect notebook for an ironic angst-filled autobiography.
I'm saving it for later.

Regarding writing matters, I was recently interviewed by David Wisehart on his popular blog Kindle Author. David asked an intriguing array of questions that I greatly enjoyed answering. See what you think!

Namaste,

CK